User talk:2Actimv
Welcome Hi, welcome to ! Thanks for your edit to the User:2Actimv page. Please feel free to leave a message on any of our administrators' talk pages (Gyarados Magnus, MTracey1, Randomg, Matt121 ??? Matt125, WesleyBranton or Lightening McQueen) if you need help with anything! Lightening McQueen (talk) 20:19, March 26, 2017 (UTC) reply Re: Home Page Design :Firstly, thanks for actually using the Wiki and finding it helpful. I do have to agree with you on the main page redesign. It is a leftover from a past era and actually is the design of an old Wikipedia main page. It would be great for us to have a main page designed to be a main page for Wikia, since I believe a good few years back Wikia introduced a main page markup or something like that. I like your original design, but there are some things to note: :# I'm not too willing to lose any sections from the main page, but fully open to a re-ordering of them. :# The On This Day (OTD) and Countdown are where they are because of the advert that appears on the top-right of the main page. On the OTD I have hidden the occasional message on the days (see example December 25) that only appears on the main page. This is neat hidden feature I wish to keep. :# The Latest News section is a consistent size and format. Since we do not have either the manpower or the desire to have an F1 Wiki News section, you'll have to propose a new format, but I like the one we've got; it has evolved quite nicely over time. Though moving the events part of the news is acceptable. :# There is a disclaimer on the bottom of the main page. This is a necessity, so please add it while I remember it. :# I'm looking to actually bring in the car colours throughout the wiki, and I think your standings will be a nice touch. Best keep it to top five or top ten for the main page though. :I do like the general theme and think it has potential, it just depends on how exactly the main page fits together. :—Gyaro Maguus— 22:40, March 27, 2017 (UTC) ::Thanks for your response, I'm happy you agree on getting a new home page and like the overall design. ::As far as I know I've only not included the on this day and featured media. Featured media could be introduced easily by adding a new box. However I've no idea how the on this day box works. To meet the design it should be in the same kind of box as the rest, but for the content I'd appreciate it if you could fix that. I can't even find the templates which make the list of things on that day appear somehow. If you want I can add some box somewhere for it of course. ::Honestly I don't see what's the problem with the news section. I think the current format is good and can be included in the box. Only thing I'd change is removing the bullets in front of every news section. I think it fits the home page better in that case. But of course style is object to change between persons. ::I didn't notice the disclaimer, but of course that can be added in a box on the bottom. ::Standings of the top ten is a possibility of course. I just included all finished drivers since I like it to see the whole standings always. Having only 10 makes it easier to update and maybe fits the box next to it better. So that's not a huge problem I believe. ::I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at the on this day box when I've added that. I'll get back to the design to fix the things said above on a new page on my test wiki (will just add a 2 or so in the name to be able to compare to this version always). 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 07:27, March 28, 2017 (UTC) :::I'm not sure what your level of understanding is for the OTD so here is a full description of what it does. As you can see, it starts with a bit that declares what date it at the top, and an article count. For the text bit, it takes the date article, which includes tags, and places the text in the middle of the custom box. The article count is unnecessary and I'm perfectly happy for the OTD section header to read something like (I've just copied and pasted the formatting): |} :::You should be able to just copy that and adjust it, it contains an #if function that says "nothing happened" if the date article has not been created (though you may wish to copy over Template:Purge). The purge bit is there because I wanted a button with which to purge the main page (to make sure it updates), this was (and still is) the easiest solution. :::As an FYI for future reference, it uses MediaWiki magic words. :::On the point of the formatting: our style here is curved borders (border-radius of 10px), with the background colour of #BD1818 and font colour of #FFF (white). To make the Main Page follow this format, I would like all of the headers to have this. We also put shadows on the outside of the boxes, but not on the headers specifically. I believe these would follow a "box-shadow:5px 5px 5px #888888" in the coding. :::As for the bullet points in the news, we can just test it and see what happens. I think it might be a good idea to switch the events bit from the news to the navigation section on your main page, or below the Countdown timer (I might actually do that myself on here actually, not sure why I didn't think of that... maybe I can make it automatic!). On second thoughts, I think I'll actually attempt a full redesign of the Countdown template, to make it longer but I'll keep the width the same. I will try to cobble together another template to go in tandem with the Countdown that displays information about the last race; these can go in the same box. :::For the standings, we have three templates for it: (full), (top 5) and (top 10), so once implemented we can test it really easily. What it shows right now isn't too important. :::Also I just found that I made this contents list some time ago, if wish to add a show/hide functionality to your main page this is the stuff to include. —Gyaro Maguus— 12:48, March 28, 2017 (UTC) ::::At the moment Wikia is doing intensive branding all over Wikia. That implicates having all wikis look similar. As far as I know everything will have straight borders. You can see it in all their new features, tweaks and changes. I've spoken with some staff member about future customizable options like round borders. However I don't have the idea they really want that in the future anymore because of branding. Having said this Wikia will have straight borders all around more and more in the coming months/years. Therefore I've also made a home page with straight borders. It'll also fit extremely well with the new header which Wikia is testing at the moment on some wikis (like community central). I think it'll fit this wiki very well. Because of this trend I think it's important to also have the otd in the same style. In general a home page looks the best when everything has the same style. Besides that the infoboxes are the only one with round borders. All other stuff have straight ones. ::::I know of magic words, but looking at the templates and all I don't see where you get the data from. I've added boxes for births, deaths and races now which should be enough. If we update the home page I think you're the best user to add the magic words and things into that since you know most about it I assume. I don't think the date is too important, but if it is I'd say adding it below the grand prix timer. A bit like it's 28 March today. The purge button isn't really relevant I believe. If you enter the website it just shows the right day. Nobody leaves a page opened for 24 hours without loading it again. And if they do just tap CTRL+F5. ::::For the current standings the whole new design needs to be used on the home page by making a new template I think. Every line could be even made a template for easy updating. 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 13:44, March 28, 2017 (UTC) :::::Having looked at the main page formatting on Community Central, it is definitely possible to get the look I want but ... yeah I forgot about the new header and chose to not care about Wikia's branding. Our branding is nearing three years old and I'm currently in the process of redesigning the wordmark to a new style, having updated the Twitter and Facebook logos. Once Wikia introduce the new header globally it may be time for a rebranding. TL;DR let's discuss pure aesthetics once we've worked out the important bits. :::::I am willing to combine the OTD stuff into the countdown timer plus prev/current/latest/next event thing I haven't started yet. The data comes from the date article itself. The issue that arises is that every day is a different length, so it could be worth it if I created a set of templates rather than directly link to the date article. This would actually be a pretty useful idea because right now the date articles are neither set up to be an independent article or to be a template, and trying to do both is a sub-optimal solution. And yeah the purge button can go. :::::A sub-template of the appropriate current standings template would be the easiest way to input any style changes you wish to add. The current standings template updates through , , , so it only needs one template. —Gyaro Maguus— 12:51, March 29, 2017 (UTC) ::::::This is what I made yesterday: http://2actimv.wikia.com/wiki/F1_Home_Page_Test_2. As you see the OTD stuff has been broken into parts. That way it has the space for having different lenghts of stuff every day. Having all OTD stuff plus all events below the timer will be a problem. That will take too much space. ::::::I have my own ideas on how to design the templates for easy updating for the standings. Having a template for every driver and these combining into one template where it's all combined. If you want to keep the current standings structure I think it's best if you take a look at how you're going to combine the new style with the old structure. Usually setting up a new structure is easier, but that's how I look at it. ::::::All in all I think we're progressing. The OTD shouldn't be too much of a problem when inserting the right magic words. Also the standings structure could be set up by me easily if I can introduce a new structure. You can always evaluate that after some time and might set up a new structure for it having the 'old style'.2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 13:13, March 29, 2017 (UTC) I'm just going to bullet point the next few things: * Would it be possible for the OTD sections to be separated into three columns: * Or even to have the boxes split like below should three columns be too slim: : * I think it would be better use of space; not only that but I think the navigation should go above the OTD. * And now for an addition. I believe that the setup so far would leave the main page too short for what could be done. I think a new section under the latest news could be an expanded navigation to what people are likely to visit the wiki for: articles on the drivers, teams, and the races at least. There is no easy way to reach, say, Esteban Ocon's article from the main page unless he happens to feature in the news or on the OTD. This section would likely be difficult to get right but it'll really add something to it. —Gyaro Maguus— 12:48, March 30, 2017 (UTC) :I'd prefer style 1 if it's possible with the length of the names and all. I could try making that soon if you want. Adding the navigation before the OTD could be done in 5 seconds. Some expanded navigation can be made in a new box. Having that on the bottom sounds like a good idea. Links to the drivers, constructors and all are a must in that case. If you have any other links for that I'd like to know it! 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 13:54, March 30, 2017 (UTC) ::New home page design is live now, just add a 3 behind it or check out the activity tab on my test wiki. 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 19:39, March 30, 2017 (UTC) :::I'm going to work on some of the functional aspects of the main page for a short while, including the comprehensive navigation, in my sandboxes. Otherwise it is pretty good. —Gyaro Maguus— 21:01, March 31, 2017 (UTC) ::::I look forward to that. I think it's a good idea to implement the new home page next weekend if that's possible. It might not be finished completely by then, but it's definitely ready to be shown. 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 09:43, April 4, 2017 (UTC) Go ahead I would like to apologise for leaving it this long but update the main page. —Gyaro Maguus— 19:15, June 17, 2017 (UTC) :No problem, that's always possible to happen. I'll update it as soon as I have enough time to complete it at once. If I find any difficulties I'll message you (most likely the timer). 2Actimv talk http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/2actimv/images/0/0f/NEC_Nijmegen_logo_12.png 07:29, June 20, 2017 (UTC)